The Global Sustainable Enterprise Standard® – organizational level

The Global Sustainable Enterprise Standard is measuring organizations on organization level on all facets of sustainability. The Standard is based on GRI and ISO High Level Structure and compliance with UN Global Compact, OECD Guidelines and Responsible Business Alliance. The GSE® System Standard is suitable for SME’s & Corporates. The GSE® System Standard measures the following levels and pillars:

The translation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (Sustainable Development Goals) of the United Nations is also included in the GSE-System Standard. By integrating them into the overall GSE® System, we provide organizations with tools that helps them support the SDGs.

2 levels of measurement:

Organization Level

Supply Chain Level

5 pillars of sustainability:

Corporate Social Responibility (CSR) – based on ISO 26000

Sustainable Procurement – based on ISO 20400

CO2 emissions – based on ISO 50001 & ISO 14064-1

Circular Economy (CE) – based on BS 8001

Health & Safety – based on ISO 45001

GSE Standard supports the Global Goals

The Sustainable Development Goals are the green wire thru the GSES System as 17 common goals of all members. The SDG that an organization supports are shown on their GSES scorecard.

The Sustainable Development Goals are a call for action by all countries – poor, rich and middle-income – to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. They recognize that ending poverty must go hand-in-hand with strategies that build economic growth and address a range of social needs including education, health, social protection, and job opportunities, while tackling climate change and environmental protection.

Sustainable Footprint Standard

The Sustainable Footprint Standard is the product certification standard of the GSES system. The Sustainable Footprint Standard consists of 3 pillars: the Circular Footprint, the Environmental Footprint (EF) and the Health Footprint (HF). The three topics (CF, EF and HF) give a complete picture of the sustainability performance of a product, the production process and the supply chain.

The CF focuses entirely on the use of materials in a product and its circular performance. The calculation method is based on both material usage (input side) and post-use processing (output side). The calculation in weight does not take into account the specific flow of material. The circular performance of the input and output side result in a circularity score.

With the CF, the Sustainable Footprint Standard of GSES allows for a pragmatic start for calculating and certifying a circularity score for products. Hence, it fills a gap because there is no standard / calculation method for the circularity of products yet.

The CF method is very accessible, in principle anyone would be able to use the Excel model of the calculation method provided by GSES or the online calculation tool on the GSES platform (BoM calculator) to calculate the CF score. That is because only the flows of materials are included.